The invention relates generally to initializing data storage prior to its use for storing data.
In commercially available database software today, when a user creates a database for the first time, all of the devices that are assigned to the database are first initialized. This means that a zero (or some other predefined character or pattern of characters) is written to the data storage locations in the address space that is to be used for the database. Initialization is performed to make sure that there is no dirty data in the system that might later be mistakenly treated as real data. That is, it is a way of making sure that every read is of real data and not meaningless data.
Typically, the initialization operation is done serially for each device and in the large data storage systems that are available today, it can take hours to complete. For example, a data storage system such as the Symmetrix Model 3XXX series integrated cache disk arrays from EMC Corporation of Hopkinton, Mass., can have over one hundred disk devices within a single box. And each device can hold more than 10 gigabytes of data. Thus, initializing a single device can take over 10 minutes. And since the process is performed serially, initializing the entire box can take almost a day. That can represent a very large inconvenience to the user.